


i think i almost lost you (but my soul had you the whole time)

by tigerlo



Series: we were stronger than the darkness between us [2]
Category: Ghostbusters (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universes, F/F, a continuation in the million au verse, and again a little angst but they're always together, and there's a happy ending of course, or alternate lives, or alternate times
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-17
Updated: 2017-02-17
Packaged: 2018-09-25 03:04:10
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,196
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9800045
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigerlo/pseuds/tigerlo
Summary: The stars tried to hold us apart.orThe lab accident that almost destroys them all throws Erin and Jillian deeper into the void than anyone could ever have imagined.(Holtz's pov / companion piece to 'didn't you know i'd find you')





	

**Author's Note:**

> So turns out I was *far* more in love with and attached to this story than I thought, and I wasn't quite ready to let it go. 
> 
> I give to you beautiful people then, the story of their catastrophe from Jillian's point of view.
> 
> And again, I'm sorry if this jumps around a little but hopefully you can all follow.

 

-

 

It's a mistake.

 

A monumental mistake.

 

It's the definition of a worst nightmare for scientist on the edge of their field.

 

And she sees it at the last minute but it's _too late_.

 

-

 

Abby hits the button and everything collapses.

 

She tries to shut it off because everything she builds has a failsafe, a kill switch, even if the others don't realise it but this one doesn't work.

 

Because whatever is causing the window to get bigger and bigger is **far** more advanced than her circuitry and it just _doesn't stop_.

 

-

 

She registers Abby's desperate words, and Patty’s panicked pleas but her eyes look for Erin.

 

Because Erin doesn't know it yet, but she is Jillian's _anchor_.

 

(Much, _much_ later, when they are home and safe she will learn that Erin's soul had known from the beginning, and her mind had known soon after)

  

She looks up, face ashy with fear to find calm blue eyes that ask her to _stay_ , and it gives her enough clarity to settle for a moment.

 

Her hands push desperately through her hair and she _thinks_ but it's no use because this shouldn't be possible but **clearly** it is.

 

And then Erin's moving.

 

Reckless, brave, selfless Erin who knows this is their fault and the consequences will be theirs to bear the burden of too.

 

She moves towards the device and she hears Patty's scared plea to bring her back but Jillian knows she's much too close now, and she does the only thing she can think of.

 

She takes Erin's hand and they look at each other for exactly two seconds, and she thinks she can see into Erin’s heart but then the floor drops beneath her feet and everything goes white.

 

And then **black**.

 

And then _blank_.

 

-

 

She wakes up with the taste of a memory on her tongue.

 

It's too distant and weak and just out of reach, and it's still the middle of the night so she closes her eyes again.

 

And then Erin stirs against her and starts to cry and she realises why she has woken, because she responds to Erin like they're connected at every single point of their bodies.

 

The night terrors are awful and she wishes she could do more but nothing has worked apart from _touch_.

 

So she pulls Erin close to her and whispers a lullaby she can't ever remember learning, and eventually Erin drifts.

 

In the morning she realises it had been in a language she's never learnt and she doesn't _understand_.

 

But then something tugs behind the base of her spine and things **shift** , and she wakes up with another memory on her tongue.

 

-

 

There is a shadow that settles between her ribs that she can never seem to shake.

 

It throbs like she's constantly forgotten something only she can't for the life of her remember what it is.

 

When she is lucid she will realise that this is her memory, running on record in the background but behind a veil, unreadable in all but a handful of worlds.

 

And when she is not it will sit at the tip of her tongue like a word she can't think of, and sometimes she will look at Erin and remember for a flash, a second, but it slips between her fingers like ice.

 

And she forgets again.

 

-

 

It almost breaks her heart.

 

When they return and all of her memories settle into her body and she realises how _alone_ Erin must have felt.

 

The guilt almost makes her collapse but then she stops because she remembers that Erin has survived it all, and her strength sets Jillian's spine.

 

And she channels that into love instead of sorrow and it helps them both _breathe_.

 

-

 

Because it affects them both in a _much_ deeper way than they let on to the others.

 

Erin will stop during the middle of the day, pause suddenly wherever she is, and Jillian will know something has run across the back of her neck again.

 

She never says anything, doesn't make a sound.

 

She just walks over, runs her hand softly across the small of Erin's back and she relaxes into Jillian's touch and _comes back._

 

-

 

It changes them both irrevocably because they have seen the inside and the end of the universe, and they know what heaven looks like, and there is nothing that can bring them back from that.

 

And _nothing_ is stronger than their bond because of it.

 

-

 

In the dark she sits still and tries to recall them all to the forefront of her memory.

 

Because sometimes Erin will wake in the middle of the night with a desperate need to talk about a world that shook her harder than the others, and Jillian wants to walk through them all with a clarity that will help.

 

She thinks about writing them down but something deeper than the truth they have seen tells her that this is something for she and Erin alone.

 

So she keeps them locked in her heart and around the edges of her conscious and unconscious mind and it feels like something _massive_ , that no one but the two of them will ever know what the pulse of the universe looks like.

 

-

 

She remembers a world where she meets Erin as a child and they fall in love over their tenth summer in the world.

 

They ride their bikes round and round the cul-de-sac they live in long after the mosquitoes start biting the skin of their ankles, and learn everything it's possible to know about one another.

 

They whisper secrets beneath blankets and pass notes in class and sit through the occasional detention together because Jillian is a scientist in this world too and neither of them can resist the lure of experimentation in chemistry class, moving far beyond what their teachers deem safe.

 

Erin is a willing co-conspirator in _everything_.

 

And so what if they make a low-grade nuclear device when they are thirteen if it means they're both offered positions at CERN much later.

 

It's years before they realise the extent of their feelings, but once they do everything falls beautifully into place.

 

Erin stops dating boys that line up for her because here they are popular but kind, and people love them.

 

They win Homecoming Queen’s and they make love for the first time later that night.

 

The memory of sliding Erin's dress from her shoulders and over her hips is something that Jillian will remember until she dies for the final time.

 

They say I love you that night too.

 

She whispers it to the sweep of Erin's shoulder blade as she unhooks her bra, and Erin cries because it's _perfect_.

 

-

 

In another she meets Erin with a sprained ankle on a goat track, high on a dusty hill in a country that looks like Greece.

 

Here, Jillian has lived on the edge of a sea made of sapphires her entire life, uprooted as a child so her parents could follow the migration patterns of a local fish species.

 

Erin is visiting following a messy divorce and the death of her mother, and she's crying when Jillian bends down to inspect her ankle.

 

They fall in love the second their eyes meet.

 

“I'm Jillian. Holtzmann. Do you want to….”

 

“Yes,” Erin says quickly and without a flash of hesitation. “Whatever you're about to ask, yes.”

 

 

(Erin's swiftness makes sense to her later, when she _remembers_ , because here Erin has lived half of her life searching for the other part of her whole)

 

 

She slides her arm around Erin's waist and Erin puts hers across Jillian's shoulders for support as they walk down the mountain to the rest of their lives.

 

Jillian walks her back to her hotel and she almost jumps out of her skin when Erin pulls her inside the second they arrive.

 

Jillian pushes back against Erin's collarbone for a moment, their foreheads resting together as she asks if she's sure, and Erin nods and whispers something that sounds like _you wouldn't believe me if I told you how much so._

 

They kiss and it's magnificent.

 

Erin presses her against the wall with a hunger that takes Jillian's breath away but her body reacts, more beautifully and completely than it has ever done with a lover before, and for now she doesn't understand _why_.

 

But she will.

 

Here, they marry in a simple wedding on the cliff of the Adriatic Sea and Erin has an olive crown that makes her look like a princess.

 

The sunlight sings off the colour of her hair as they are pronounced wife and wife and Jillian feels **whole**.

 

Later, when she _remembers_ Jillian will think it's the most beautiful Erin has ever looked in any world that wasn't their own.

 

-

 

Some worlds are neat and others are messy because occasionally the universe will set them a challenge and marry them off to someone else.

 

Someone wrong.

 

Or they'll make it **hard**.

 

Set them with a set of circumstances that makes it damn near impossible to meet as _wholly_ as they are meant to.

 

But it doesn't matter, not really.

 

Because they always find a way.

 

Always.

 

-

 

The ones that test them make Jillian hurt the deepest after.

 

Because the thought of Erin searching alone or being tripped up by every conceivable obstacle is heartbreaking.

 

But it makes her eternally thankful too.

 

Because Erin had preserved. _Always_.

 

And Jillian never could have dreamed of how exquisitely beautiful that is, to have a love that heavy wrapped around their wrists as a bond.

 

-

 

In one, Jillian dances at a local strip club to help pay her college tuition.

 

It's easy work and she knows she has a nice body and her boss won't ever pair her with a man if she's requested for a private dance, so it works.

 

It's a job and she compartmentalises easily.

 

Until she meets Erin.

 

Here, Erin is a CEO for an international accounting firm and she is _stunning_ in her rigidity.

 

Jillian can read the stress in her frame as soon as she walks through the door with a practised hesitation that tells Jillian it's not the first time she's been to a bar like this, but that she's far from at ease.

 

She watches Erin sit down at the bar, order something dark and neat and not take her eyes off the blonde the entire time.

 

Jillian doesn't remember in this world either, but it's the closest they'll ever come to having the lust and desire between them shatter the veil holding her memory back.

 

Erin knocks her drink back and leans over to the bartender, her eyes still locked with Holtz's before she moves, led to one of the private rooms.

 

Her boss waves her over at the end of the next song and sends her towards the room with a pat on her back.

 

“This one's got it bad Blondie. I think you'll get a big tip if you play your cards right.”

 

In this world Jillian is as confident as she will ever be, but a pretty stranger is a pretty stranger and her heart pounds thickly in her wrists as she pushes the door open.

 

The rooms are a little clinical but honestly, they could be worse and Erin's waiting in the armchair in the middle of the room, playing with the rim of her glass where it rests on the table to one side when Jillian walks in.

 

Erin breathes a heavy sigh in what looks like relief laced with guilt when Holtz looks at her and she's confused because there's a familiarity in Erin’s gaze that doesn't make sense.

 

Not yet anyway.

 

There's already music playing but she walks over to the stereo system on the other side of the door, picks something heavy and breathless before she walks over to Erin.

 

She's still got her suit jacket on and Jillian's fingers find the lapels as she moves to stand between Erin's legs.

 

“May I?” She says and Erin nods, her eyes flicking from Holtz’s hands to her throat to her eyes.

 

“My name’s Jillian but you can call me whatever you want. As long as it's not offensive.”

 

She never gives her real name, ever.

 

Not that anyone would know it because the only person that calls her Jillian was her mother and she's been dead for years.

 

It's like the cardinal rule of stripping. No names. But there's something about this woman that makes Holtz want to give her _everything_.

 

“That's your real name,” Erin says, and it's not a question it's a statement, another thing that will almost knock Jillian off balance tonight.

 

“I didn't think you were supposed to give people your real names?” Erin says, sighing as Holtz peels her jacket back off her shoulders.

 

She doesn't say how do you know that's not my real name because even though she doesn't know who Erin is yet, she knows there's no point in lying here.

 

“We're not.”

 

She undoes the top button of Erin's shirt, another no no but she can't stop her fingers from moving for them.

 

“So why am I special?”

 

“I don't know,” Holtz says honestly.

 

“I'm Erin,” she says in reply and Holtz nods because it fits her perfectly.

 

“Erin, huh? Well Erin, what would you like me to do tonight? Something tells me this isn't your first rodeo but there's a pretty shyness under your eyes that says it's not something you do often.”

 

“It's not,” Erin says, and she looks like she's trying to drink in as much of this as she can, to absorb as much of Jillian's heartbeat as her body can take.

 

“What brings you here tonight then?”

 

“Crappy day at work.”

 

“Come on, what are you a CEO? That must be every other day for you. What's special about tonight?”

 

“I don't know,” Erin says shrugging as Holtz loosens another button.

 

She takes a breath and Jillian can tell there's a lie on the tip of Erin's tongue and she finds herself holding her breath too.

 

“I was lonely,” Erin says finally. And honestly. “And I was looking for something.”

 

_Or someone_.

 

“Well, have you found what you were looking for?”

 

“Yes,” she says simply, and the weight and significance _dents_ the veil between them.

 

They stop talking then because they're moving into dangerous territory, which is saying something because they're walking on glass as it is.

 

Holtz turns the music with a remote she pulls from her bra, placing it next to Erin's drink which she hands to the redhead who knocks it back in one swift blow.

 

She moves, sliding her knees between the outside of Erin's thighs and the seat and she tips her head back, letting the sound wash over her throat.

 

She's always been a good dancer, but this has taught her a fluidity that she adores playing with.

 

The song heats up and she turns, her back to Erin, and watches as her hands clench around the armrests of the chair, her nails biting into the leather.

 

Her ass is pushing down into Erin's lap and it's _hot_ , hotter than it's ever been before with a client.

 

She shouldn't, like she really fucking shouldn't but she's already so far past the line of what's appropriate she can't even see it anymore so she only hesitates for a millionth of a second before she threads her fingers between Erin's and places them splayed out beneath her ribs.

 

Erin reacts immediately, moving forward in the chair, her breath ghosting over the shell of Jillian's ear as her fingers tighten against Jillian's stomach.

 

“I didn't think you were allowed to touch like this?”

 

It's heavy, a challenge and hope all at once.

 

“You're not,” Jillian says gulping as Erin nips the edge of her earlobe. “We're not.”

 

“Then why?”

 

“You're special. Can't you feel it?”

 

She actually hears something snap in Erin then, her self-control gives with an obvious _crack_ and she spins Holtz in her lap so they are face to face.

 

“This isn't for money,” Erin says heavily. “Although I'll pay you if you want. I just want….”

 

“I don't want your money,” Holtz says against Erin's lips a second before they come crashing together. “I just want you.”

 

-

 

Erin fucks her within an inch of her sanity, harder than she ever has before or will do after.

 

She's rougher and hungrier than Jillian has ever experienced in this world but her body meets it with an ease that will shock her when she tends to the bruises and nail lines in the days that follow.

 

She carries the marks for a full week after, and just as they begin to sink back into her skin a bunch of flowers arrive with a room key to an incredibly expensive hotel in town.

 

The second set take a month to fade.

 

-

 

Later, Holtz will wonder why that was the universe that made her _snap_.

 

“Fifteen years,” Erin tells her with tears in her eyes. “I'd been looking for fifteen years.”

 

Her next words are whispered, almost like Erin hadn't wanted her to actually hear but she'd _needed_ to free them from the prison inside her chest.

 

And Jillian understands then that Erin was truly on a knife-edge, her fingertips slipping on loose rocks that crumble away at the edge of a cliff.

 

“And I was a day away from giving up.”

 

-

 

The memory she can recall after that is much softer, and she gives thanks to whatever force drove them through this whole magnificent fuck up, because she doesn't know how Erin could have coped with another one as harsh as the last.

 

Here, Jillian is a teacher at Erin's niece's school and she gets dragged along to parent teacher afternoon in lieu of a brother in law.

 

She doesn't remember here either but it's ok, because Erin’s only been here a week before they meet.

 

They're sat on the floor, all participating in a finger painting session while Jillian speaks to Erin's sister about how her numeracy and literacy comprehension is almost off the charts for someone of her age, but she's painfully shy.

 

“Sound like anyone we know?” Erin's sister asks, knocking their shoulders together before Erin scrunches up her face and wipes a line of paint along her sister's cheek with a smirk.  

 

Her niece laughs, her little voice a beautiful soft trill that Erin matches, and Jillian falls in love in the space of about five seconds.

 

They wash their hands together as Erin's sister pulls her daughter's jacket on by the door and their hands brush together under the stream of water.

 

They both look up, shy eyes and slightly pink cheeks and Jillian sets her shoulders as she takes a deep breath.

 

“I know this is a little forward, and it's probably inappropriate too but she's not technically _your_ daughter….”

“Yes,” Erin says easily, her eyes alight with a beautiful softness. “Pick me up at seven? I'll text you my address.”

 

“Perfect,” Jillian says smiling as she passes Erin the hand towel.

 

The tips of their fingers just brush together and the electricity that's wound through and around them across a thousand universes arcs between their hands and Erin sighs _deeply_ as she hands the towel back to Holtz.

 

“I can't wait,” Erin says and it makes sense later, why it just _resonates_ with sincerity deeper than the height of the moon.

 

-

 

They have sex for the first time in the back of Jillian's car in this world three days later, after their second date.

 

“I don't normally do this,” Erin gasps against Jillian's neck as she settles down onto her fingers.

 

“Neither do I, _god_ _Erin_ , but I can't keep my fucking hands off you.”

 

“You swear a lot for an primary school teacher, you know that right?” Erin quips but Jillian just thrusts up harder.

 

“Fuck you,” the blonde says smirking dangerously and Erin's eyes drift open as she crashes their lips together.

 

“Isn't that what you're doing now?” Erin breathes as they break away.

 

“Oh Erin, you have no _idea_ what I can do.”

 

-

 

In the most peaceful world she can recall to memory, they _rule_.

 

They are born and raised in the wild of a jungle and they're raised as Queens when they come of age.

 

They are special to the people they live amongst because they've been inseparable for as long as anyone can remember, and one evening when they are still children they walk back into the village with a tiger and panther cub apiece and the people fall to their knees in acquiescence.

 

Because here they believe the cats are a manifestation of their souls, and this is the jungles way of telling the people they are _worthy_.

 

Neither of them can remember parents when they speak of this world later, just the paternal hum of the entire village but it's fine because they've always had each other.

 

Their people speak of soul mates like they're a rarity but a true possibility, and there isn't a body in the whole of their small civilisation that doubts they are anything less than that from the time they are children.

 

They are raised amongst dust and dirt to make them humble, taught patience and perseverance with craftsmanship and when they come of age they're sworn to the people in a ceremony as old as the roots beneath their feet.

 

It's a marriage and a coronation at once and they both cry when they see each other wrapped in cloaks of soft linen and gold, and the people fall deeper in love with them (if such a thing is possible).

 

They make love for the first time in their new bedchamber and their cats scrap and scratch all night, mirroring the actions of skin and bone and _soul_ on the mattress above them.

 

They wear heavy circles of gold around their wrists now, a hallmark of the regency of their people, with massive stones set into the inside and outside to rest against bare skin.

 

Each gem handpicked for the other from _thousands_ of raw ones.

 

Jillian's fingers slide over the black diamonds that line Erin's but run over the outside of her own.

 

“Isn't it odd we picked the exact opposite for each other?” Jillian asks as she moves her hands and runs her fingers across the sapphires on the outside of Erin's, a mirror of those that line her own.

 

“No,” Erin says simply as she leans to kiss Jillian breathless again. “It feels perfect, don't you think?”

 

“Yes,” Jillian gasps as Erin moves down her body.

 

The cats start to growl deep and heavy as they prowl around the room and Jillian whispers _I love you_ a million times as Erin pushes into her again and again.

 

Erin is the braver of them in this world, the _bolder_ , and Jillian looks to her with nervous eyes the next morning once they are dressed as they head to the formal hall that will serve as their receiving room.

 

Their cats walk slowly behind them, noses low to the marble floor, and a hush falls over as they enter the hall.

 

They are formally introduced to the people and their lives begin again as Monarchs.

 

They have _years_ here, and they are together when then go.

 

One afternoon they escape off into the jungle for a little peace and Jillian spreads out her cloak on the ground for them both.

 

It's a little colder now, only enough for an extra layer but still.

 

“The season is changing finally, can you smell it?” Erin asks as she settles against Jillian's chest as they lay on the ground.

 

“Yes,” Jillian says as she closes her eyes and breathes in the variance on the breeze.

 

“Your name day is next week,” she says to Erin long minutes later as they both watch the sky darkening.

 

“I know,” Erin says with a little frown. “I had hoped you would forget.”

 

“Have I forgotten once in all the years I've known you?”

 

“No,” Erin says with a smile. “Of course not.”

 

She already has Erin's gift, hidden with one of their chamber maidens. A small knife to replace the well-worn one Erin lost on a hunt a moon ago.

 

The handle is onyx, hard and smooth to touch at once and the blade is Jillian's own work.

 

They fall into a soft silence and Jillian can feel their heartbeats falling to sync as Erin's breathing starts to slow.

 

Later, when they remember this world they will mourn the loss of acceptance because here, above anywhere else, they are adored for the things that make them outcasts.

 

She can hear their cats padding through the soft foliage around them and Jillian closes her eyes too, heavily content.

 

She sleeps and they _shift_.

 

When she wakes, she is alone for a year before Erin finds her.

 

-

 

In the universe following Jillian is a lounge singer in a time that feels like the 1920’s only they don't follow the Gregorian calendar here.

 

Each night she sings to a room filled with low hanging smoke and soft red lamps and quiet faceless bodies.

 

Here she leaves alone, because it's too dangerous for women like her to reveal themselves to a companion unless they are _sure_.

 

It's a little monotonous but she loves the scratch that follows a few hours of singing and it's safe work for a woman of the time too.

 

One evening Erin walks in on the arm of her husband and Jillian falls in love in an instant, their eyes meeting like magnets across the room.

 

She doesn't see them leave as she finishes her set, and she almost sobs because Erin here is _beautiful_.

 

And sad, she learns when they come back the night following.

 

And the night after.

 

Jillian has no idea _how_ she has convinced her husband to bring her along every night this week but she's not complaining.

 

On the fourth night in a row she takes an enormous risk and settles into the seat next to Erin at the bar while her husband walks outside with a few men.

 

“I've seen you here a lot this week,” Jillian says as she takes the shot of watered down whiskey the bartender slides over to her. “Something you like about the place? It's not the drinks, I know that for sure.”

 

Erin looks to her with deep sad eyes and Jillian aches with the need to reach out and take her hand, to run _far_ away from whatever is breaking her heart so and never look back.

 

“You could say that,” Erin says carefully, their eyes meeting in the middle of the ocean.

 

“Care to share? Jillian asks as she moves to light a cigarette of her own. “You mind?”

 

“No,” Erin says shaking her head. “And I could, but I don't know if I should.”

 

She feels a tug around her throat and she will realise much later that this is the line between them snapping taught and shaking the drops of water that sit along it from its silvery length.

 

“You should,” Jillian says with a shaky breath. “How else will we bring the world to an end?”

 

It's a crack in time and space, only a second at the most but the veil drops between them completely and Jillian watches as Erin's eyes to bright and wide.

 

It's over with the following heartbeat though but it doesn't matter because the damage has been done, and Erin is brave and reckless at once.

 

“Take me home,” she says, taking Jillian's hand across the bar. “If you want me, take me home.”

 

They go back to her small room by the riverside and they make love so slowly and deeply that Jillian thinks they might just die in the act of it.

 

She kisses the soft skin of Erin's shoulders, and then hips, and the inside of her thighs and Erin bows to her like no lover ever has before.

 

“It's Erin,” her companion says later, as the sheets drape loosely over their bodies like marble. “My name is Erin.”

 

“I know,” Jillian says simply.

 

Because she does.

 

They are found a few days later, by a group of men cracking their knuckles and smiling a smile Jillian never wants to see again in her life.

 

But she takes Erin's hand, puts herself bodily between them and the woman she loves with her whole body after three days, and when she closes her eyes against the click of a weapon they _move_.

 

-

 

In one world, Jillian is a General in an army somewhere that resembles the Roman Empire.

 

She is strong here, the victor of a thousand battles and scars cover her body from head to toe.

 

Women are powerful here too, more so than the men and later she will laugh at the civility and calmness of war when women are the ones in charge.

 

She returns home from a long campaign, settling back into her home in a palace on the city edges when she meets Erin for the first time.

 

Erin is a handmaiden of sorts in this world, sent by her commanding officer to keep Jillian's household while she is away at war.

 

It's ridiculous really, because she has lived and almost died in this armour but now that she is safe and home, it is stuck across her shoulders.

 

She walks through the house, around tall marble columns and under heavy archways looking for anyone to help her but the house is empty.

 

Or she thinks so at least. Until she walks into her bedroom, the last room she has yet to check.

 

Erin is wearing a floor length gown in fine white fabric over one shoulder toga style, and she spins at the sound of crunching metal at the hinges of Jillian's breastplate.

 

“Oh my…. my apologies, we weren't expecting you until the afternoon,” Erin says, dropping the jug of water she was holding to walk over to Jillian.

 

She's excited, much more so than Jillian was anticipating though this makes sense of course, in the end, and she walks over to Jillian with a confidence few women in this world have around her.

 

“It's fine,” Jillian says, watching with an abject curiosity as Erin moves around her body looking for a starting point.

 

“I'm Jillian,” she says as Erin's hands settle at the join beneath her arm.

 

“I'm Erin. And you're stuck.”

 

“Yes,” she laughs. “I'm afraid I am.”

 

She makes exceptionally short work of the armour, leaving Jillian bare but for a length of fabric wrapped around her similarly to Erin's only a little tighter to fit beneath the armour.

 

Erin stands back then, looking Jillian over and it strikes her that she's being assessed like a wife looking over a loved one when they return from a long journey.

 

Her hand settles softly against a fresh scar that runs the length of Jillian's forearm.

 

“This is new,” she says quietly, before her eyes flit to the other scars and Jillian watches as she counts beneath her breath.

 

“A lion found our camp and got past the sentries. Just one more to add to many,” Jillian says, trying to keep her breathing even as Erin's hands move up her arm over bare skin.

 

If this were anyone else she would have stopped their hand at her wrist because this is _familiar_ , particularly given they've never been acquainted before, even if she is part of Jillian's house.

 

But she doesn't.

 

Because Erin's touch over her skin feels like a memory, and she doesn't want it to stop.

 

She's no stranger to the hand of a woman in this world, even given how common it is here, but she's never felt anything so warm before.

 

Erin's hands move up to her shoulders and settle against a line left by a knife at her throat in close combat.

 

“How many times have you killed?” Erin asks her quietly.

 

“Hundreds,” she says easily, because it's true. She knows the exact number but she fears that will drive Erin away.

 

(Her Erin will ask her in their world what the number really was and she will cry when she whispers it because she can still remember what each death felt like in her palms.)

 

“And how many times have you almost died?” Erin asks as she runs her fingers along Jillian's jaw, thankfully scar free, before they fall to her sides.

 

“Hundreds more.”

 

She looks at Erin, truly looks at her then and she almost doubles back beneath the conviction of her gaze because it feels much too deep.

 

But her body moves towards it with an easy instinctually that goes far beyond this life, and her mind moves with it.

 

Because truthfully, it's been far too long since she felt the heat of a woman around her fingers, and Erin is breathtaking, and something is pushing them together by the small of her back with an iron hand.

 

Erin moves first, and it's only an infinitesimal amount but it's enough.

 

Jillian moves hard and fast, picking Erin up and wrapping her round her waist as she carries her easily backwards to the bed.

 

Erin sends her off to war with the rising of the next moon, the diamond bound to a leather rope around her neck as some sort of collateral, a platinum clad promise that she will come home.

 

Which she does.

 

Again and again and again.

 

She is the longest surviving soldier in the army for the five hundred years that follow.

 

Effigies and statues line the streets for decades after they die together with their hands linked, long after the sun is gone from their skin.

 

-

 

In one world towards the end they have magic.

 

The world is like their own only here electricity crackles between Jillian's fingers when she moves her hands and Erin toys with a palm full of fire as she works with her equations.

 

This one is the shortest too.

 

She wakes in the morning and leaves before dinner, but she never ever forgets what the arc of energy felt like in her bones for as long as she lives.  

 

-

 

In the second to last Erin is a mail carrier, and Jillian meets her every morning with a cup of coffee when she walks out to collect her paper.

 

“One of these days you're going to come in and let me cook you breakfast,” she says on the fiftieth morning.

 

Erin smirks in return, a cheeky secret smile and nods, waiting until she's a few feet away until she replies.

 

“I think breakfast would be sweeter if you make it the morning after, don't you?”

 

-

 

In the world previous they meet across the battlefield tending to the wounded on both sides of an old man's war.

 

They both move with ruthless efficiency over the dead and dying, meeting somewhere in the middle of smoke and blood and gunpowder.

 

It's terrible because she _remembers_ here.

 

She remembers but they never have a chance to be together because Jillian falls asleep exhausted outside a makeshift hospital tent she thinks is Erin’s, not knowing that Erin has done the same to hers a few feet away and when they wake they are **gone**.

 

-

 

In the last she sees Erin for the first time above her coffee machine and she smiles, as the taste of something warm and familiar runs across the back of her hands.

 

She flirts with all her customers because really, that's just good business, but it's harmless.

 

And then she meets Erin Gilbert, trim cappuccino with cinnamon not chocolate, and she's never wanted anything more her entire life.

 

She flirts like a hound for two and a half months and she has the distinct impression Erin's playing with her because she flirts back too, but it feels like years before Erin finally caves.

 

She scribbles her number down on the back of her till receipt and hands it to Jillian with a smile that changes her face, and then something moves beneath Jillian's feet and their eyes meet and she _knows_.

 

And then she's being dragged backwards through a crushing darkness that tastes like cherries and stardust, and she can't see Erin but she knows she's there and her hands wrap around her waist and **hold** and when she opens her eyes they are home.

 

-

 

They come home and she remembers and Abby tells them it's only been a few months and it almost breaks her.

 

It almost breaks her but it _cracks_ Erin.

 

It's an audible sound to her as they sit on that couch together, as the horror of what they have experienced settles around them.

 

Months.

 

But it feels like it's been a hundred years.

 

And Erin spent almost all of that alone.

 

Well not physically no but mentally yes, and Jillian thinks that is worse.

 

-

 

It feels like their future hangs on a shard of glass and she's so scared Erin's going to bolt.

 

To run.

 

And Jillian wouldn't blame her because this is more than any human heart should have to bear, but she wants her to stay.

 

She needs to stay.

 

For _both_ of their sanities.

 

So she does the only thing she can think of to show Erin that they're in this together, always.

 

As they have been for the last two hundred lives.

 

She drops to her knee and proposes.

 

And it's not difficult, not really. Because they've already done this almost two hundred times before.

 

Only this time it's for always.

 

A _true_ always.

 

Erin says yes and Jillian takes her to bed and for the first time in a hundred years they sleep, knowing exactly where they will wake.

 

-

 

But they don't make it to the morning.

 

Because Erin wakes in the middle of the night, and Jillian can feel the need and want pouring off her in the moonlight like the most beautiful scent in the world.

 

So she takes her fiancée by the hand and strips away the years with her teeth and her tongue and her fingers.

 

She _pushes_ Erin, because she wants her to forget wholeheartedly, even if just for a moment.

 

-

 

It's the easiest thing in the world to slide between Erin's thighs, because it's like muscle memory now.

 

Jillian's hands remember every inch of her skin and they smooth over heartbreak and loss and tears and _decades_ spent alone.

 

-

 

She moves as slowly as she thinks Erin can stand.

 

She claws at Jillian's back like the cats and that were their shadows for a decade, and she bends into every touch so heavily Jillian thinks she might break but she doesn't.

 

Because she wants to feel the burn too.

 

She wants Jillian to scorch away as much of the damage as she can and Jillian _obeys_.

 

-

 

“Don't give me a choice. I want to make this _last_.”

 

-

 

It must feel like torture because it's not far off for Jillian and she's not the one being touched.

 

She brings Erin to the edge more times than she can count before she drops off suddenly, moves away to another less stimulated part of her body and starts again.

 

She draws lazy circles with her fingers, and then her tongue, and it's delicious and Erin shakes beneath her but she never allows it to be _enough_.

 

Not yet.

 

-

 

She has Erin in a hundred positions across the bed that will become theirs. That has been theirs for _years_ before.

 

She pulls Erin into her lap, brings a nipple swiftly between her teeth before biting at the less sensitive flesh of the swell of her breast before she changes, pushing Erin onto her back so she can crawl down her stomach and nip at the skin of her inner thighs.

 

She presses Erin stomach down into the mattress as she pulls Erin’s hips up slightly so she can push in from behind and Erin moans **deep** , because the pressure is different from this angle.

 

She heats too quickly like this so Jillian pulls her up to the headboard, presses her back flush against the wall as she sucks at the skin pulsing beneath her tongue and leaves a bruise that will be there for _days_.

 

She waits until she sees the tears prick at the edge of Erin's eyes and her teeth worry her own lip to the point of breaking before she finally gives in.

 

-

 

She's ready to push, until Erin gives, but then she stops.

 

Because she can feel herself throbbing as she holds herself over Erin's body and she suddenly realises how close she is too.

 

So she whispers that she wants to do this together and Erin responds beautifully, draws her own hand down Jillian's stomach beneath her waistband and then _inside_ and she takes Jillian to the edge too

 

-

 

The sound Erin makes when she finally _falls_ is the most beautiful thing Jillian has heard in a million lifetimes.

 

It's so breathtaking that she almost forgets to come herself, even with Erin's fingers driving her there and her teeth in Jillian's shoulder.

 

Erin's moan shakes the windows in their frames and she draws Jillian deeper and deeper inside her as her orgasm creates and then begins to fall.

 

But Jillian doesn't stop there.

 

The waits as she feels it recede with her own and then she moves, again.

 

She pushes and _curls_ and Erin tries to reciprocate but she takes her hand away, pins it above her head because she wants this to be for Erin, only.

 

-

 

“Let me….”

 

“No. I want you. I want to make you forget.”

 

“You're _inside_ me Jillian, how do you expect me to remember anything else.”

 

“Good. But you can still talk, so I think I have more I can do.”

 

“I don't think you can make me feel more. I can feel you _everywhere_.”

 

“Not yet. But you will.”

 

-

 

They roll each other over and over until they collapse from exhaustion.

 

They lay, panting and covered in a fine dust of want and desire and sweat and Erin drags them both under the water of a cool shower in the middle of the night in an attempt to cool their ember hot skin.

 

She has Jillian again, with the tiles smooth against her back and Jillian cries.

 

Because it's almost **too much** but it's Erin, so she can _take_ it.

 

-

 

They make a pact with the raw diamond between their hands before they have it cut that they won't tell the others their whole story.

 

Small parts, sure. Enough to assuage their curiosity and cap their worry, but nothing more.

 

Because it's knowledge _earned_.

 

Through blood and loneliness and the smell of the last star at dawn, and it is theirs alone.

 

-

 

Half of the diamond rests against her skin, set into in a small gold locket on a long chain that she loops twice round her neck.

 

The locket is plain but open at the back, the diamond set flush against the metal to sit directly against her chest.

 

It's beautiful, and it feels _powerful_ , and if she closes her eyes, she can feel Erin's heartbeat through its twin.

  

 -

 

End.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Am I crazy for carrying this on? Did you make it to the end?
> 
> x
> 
> p.s who wants to come and live in the JungleQueen or StripperHoltz AU with me?


End file.
